


rid the hallways of light

by ghiblitears



Category: Beyond Good and Evil
Genre: Drabble, Gen, Post-Canon, Post-War, Prose Poem, dealing with the aftermath
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-29
Updated: 2018-01-29
Packaged: 2019-03-11 04:29:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13516608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghiblitears/pseuds/ghiblitears
Summary: Jade visits the lighthouse after the war to find that nothing and everything has changed.





	rid the hallways of light

The lighthouse looks exactly as it had when they’d left.

 

It surprises Jade, who thinks that something about it should be different after the war. She stands in the doorway between the grass and the workshop’s hallway and it still stands before her; battered, roofless, stretching to the grey sky in jagged white spikes. Waves crash against the black rock base and spray saltwater up the sides of the island. A gust of wind ruffles the grass, skims through her short black hair.

 

Jade walks away and stares back at the dock. The Beluga bay is open, that’s something new. She walks across the lawn. Woof is absent, probably napping in Pey’j’s workshop. Even the field armadillo that guards the shield switch is hiding.

 

She goes inside the lighthouse. The fridge is empty. The lights are off.

 

Past the kitchen, the wooden stairs go up and up. Plaster dusts the floor from where the walls have cracked, and she makes light footprints in it, like snowfall.

 

Another floor up brings the war sharply into view; the newly opened roof bathes the kids’ bedrooms in golden light. The computer terminal is still on from when she found the Beluga. Photos still adorn the walls. Zaza’s doll still lays on the floor though Zaza herself has gone home. All the kids are home, taken back to their reassembled families. That was Jade’s goal all along, to empty the halls of their laughter and light. An empty lighthouse meant the kids were okay.

 

Maybe that’s what’s different about the lighthouse now.

 

Jade holds her battered camera as though it were glass. It’s lighter than she remembers. She thinks how strange it is that something so small has caused a revolution. Babukar told her about the protests in the street when they came home from the moon, a day after they landed when she ran through the Pedestrian District and it looked different too, peaceful, happy. He told her about how the people stormed the streets and pushed over the propaganda screens. He said it was hope. She felt like it was victory. She wished she could have been there, but she had a different role to play.

 

“How’d I end up getting this far?” Jade asks the camera. It says nothing, which relieves her and scares her. Jade is a straightforward woman, never looking for dodging answers or hidden truths. She just wants some clarity.

 

Something in her tells her that she was always involved, always in the thick of it. Her genes say so. Pey’j says so. Shauni says so. And that’s probably all true; after all, it was only another mission until the Domz decided to make it personal.

 

She can’t decide what’s stranger; that the lighthouse looks the same or that she still looks the same.

 

A change of scenery is in order. Jade walks back through the lighthouse halls to the front door that’s perpetually open. She knows Double H is around somewhere, Pey’j too, but she can’t find them and decides it’s best to leave them be. Soft footfalls on the worn stone announce her arrival, in case they do want to find her. The stone makes way to grass, which inclines down the hill to her favourite tree. She follows it willingly and sits.

 

It’s grown dark now. Jade sits among the fireflies and pretends she is still among the stars.

**Author's Note:**

> a different kind of fic than my usual fare, but I've had this in my drafts forever and kind of love it still. This game is criminally underrated -- here's hoping the prequel gets more people interested.
> 
> hmu on my tumblr @ghiblirey


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